(JTA) — On Day 1 of the state-mandated shutdown in Pennsylvania, Amy Krulik tried to strike an upbeat tone.To stop the spread of the coronavirus, the Kaiserman Jewish Community Center outside Philadelphia had been shuttered starting March 13. Its 178...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Ben Chouake is an emergency physician with a side gig: He leads NORPAC, a leading pro-Israel political action committee.I check in occasionally with Chouake to see how the New Jersey-based PAC is doing, what’s on its agenda. It’s...
(JTA) — Two men died Friday morning in Israel of the coronavirus, bringing the country’s death toll to 12.Both men, aged 80 and 73, had underlying health issues. They had been on ventilators for several days and in critical condition at Wolffson Hospital...
(JTA) — A London rabbi has died from the coronavirus and Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he is infected.Rabbi Uri Ashkenazi was a leader of the Stanislaver Hasidic community, Hamodia reported. He died Thursday at 76.Johnson made the announcement Friday,...
(JTA) — At least twice a day, Micol Naccache breaks down in tears over what the coronavirus is doing to her city of Milan and its Jewish community.A high school teacher and mother of two, Naccache describes herself as “an optimistic person.” But...
On March 4, 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke to the nation after taking the oath of office as president. When FDR stood supported by his steel leg braces on that gray noon, he proclaimed a sentence that has...
By Carol Wolf Solomon, Special to the Jewish Light
• Published March 26, 2020
It wasn’t supposed to end this way. Last Friday, March 20, was to be the final Shabbat service in the life of Temple Israel of Godfrey, Ill., a nearly 100-year old small Reform congregation that will cease to operate at the end of March. It was to...
Editor’s note: This column by Dr. James Hinrichs was made possible thanks to the generosity of Dr. Jonathan Root, Dr. Norman Druck and Galia Movitz. I was asked by Jewish Light to host a column on the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. I am board certified...
As you’re reading this, my younger son, Leo, has just turned 13. In just a few days, I turn 50. One-third of my life is over just like that. And this weekend was supposed to be Leo’s bar mitzvah.
I don’t expect 50 to be that different than...
Pondering my situationIn the early 1940s my late husband and his family, eventual Holocaust survivors, were incarcerated in the Warsaw Ghetto for 11 months. They escaped and were then hidden in a straw-lined hole under a Polish farmer’s barn, two miles...
CHICAGO (JTA) — As the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic, we’re all tasked with slowing its spread through social isolation. That’s not necessarily a big ask for someone like me. I can deal with people in short bursts but, for the most...
By Rabbi Seth D. Gordon
• Published March 26, 2020
Surreal.My most vivid surreal experience was on Sept. 12, 2001, or 9/12. We then lived on Long Island, about 45 minutes from the World Trade Towers in Manhattan. We saw the news the day before — an airplane had hit one of the buildings. What happened?...
